


away from home, yet home

by lupinely



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Multi, Other, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, canon timeline? never heard of her, you know what they say about old soldiers. first they're young.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupinely/pseuds/lupinely
Summary: Before they are old soldiers, they're young ones, and everything happens in ways they don't expect. Ana/Gabe/Jack.





	away from home, yet home

 

 

  

Ana enlisted first, but never joined the soldier enhancement program. Never got the offer, actually—though she would have turned it down if she had. She still wanted to have kids someday. The life expectancy for enhanced soldiers, despite all their enhancements and fancy training, is not long at all.

When Overwatch is founded, this time Ana does get an offer, direct from Gabriel Reyes. He brings her into the program and right away she likes him. He is sharp, practical, with a warmth to his eyes that Ana doubts very many other people ever see. He is utterly charmed by Fareeha and notes that Overwatch “is like a family—we’ll keep her safe here, too.” Better benefits than the military. A more dangerous job for her—but a more stable life for Fareeha. Ana accepts.

Morrison is more of a recluse even in the small base where Ana first trains, and it is hard to ever catch a glimpse of the man. She asks Reyes about him a few times; the two of them have known each other for years already, and they are both the de facto leaders of the organization.

Reyes shrugs. “What’s to say? Farm kid from Indiana. Hell of a right hook. You should just introduce yourself. You’d get a better sense of him than I could ever give you.”

Ana doesn’t know what that means, not really, not until she meets Morrison properly and realizes exactly what Reyes meant. The kid—he is a kid to her, four years her junior just like Reyes is, but Reyes understands the things that she understands about life, about being black or brown in a society that claims to be post-racial ever since the omnics became the new biggest threat, and Morrison doesn’t have any of that. Blue-eyed, bright-eyed. He shakes her hand when they meet, enthusiastically, says he has heard all about her skills and is so glad to have her on the team.

Later she and Gabe are having a drink. Ana asks, “Is he always like that?” She does not have to specify who.

“Every minute since the moment I met him,” Gabe says, and instead of looking exasperated, or even smug, he smiles, bright and happy and amused, and Ana blinks, thinks, _oh,_ and clinks her glass against his.

 

 

If she ever wonders about that, the two of them, well—it’s not her place to get involved. And Gabe—she and he are attracted to each other, she can tell; can read it on his face when they work together, when they spend their downtime together. But it’s more than that. They understand each other. There is a kinship there that goes deeper than attraction, deeper than anything superficial or skin deep. But the superficial is nice, too.

It only happens a handful of times. Ana is satisfied with that. She is more of a loner than she lets on, and Fareeha is all that she truly needs in her life to be happy. Even her relationship with Fareeha’s father had been more perfunctory than anything else, and Ana does not miss it. But sometimes after a hard mission, when she gets back to base Gabe will show up at her quarters. He always comes to her rather than the other way around—that is what she tells herself later when she feels guilty, feels grief; it has always been his choice. Somehow that matters: choice. Especially when all of Gabriel’s choices will be repeatedly taken from him later, one by one by one. But she does not know that yet.

One night in particular Gabe is gentle, quiet, sad, and she smoothes his dark curls back from his forehead. Something is wrong, she knows that, but she also knows that it goes beyond words, and there is nothing to be said for it. His hands are rough and cracked and she is strong, too, can pin a man easily if she has to, and so sometimes she does. The scrape of her nails over his shoulders, the pass of his palms over hers. The press of his mouth. That warmth again, that no one else can see in him—except Jack, she realizes suddenly while she is kissing him, and for some reason that doesn’t shock her, makes her feel more content than she did already.

Gabe pulls her close, kisses her collarbone. If he sighs, quietly, wearily, she does not mention it to him, but pushes back his hair again and understands.

Jack gets promoted to Strike Commander. Ana is astonished, and she doesn’t even know why. She had known in her heart that Gabriel deserved it, but this is the world they live in, and she knows that too.

 

 

They give Gabe Blackwatch, and it feels like a slap in the face. Yes, Gabriel is more practical, sharper than Jack, has a more piercing and discerning mind, whereas Jack is all heart and soul, but—Gabriel could have been amazing. He would have shone. And now he has to work in the dark.

They transfer Ana to Jack’s division of Overwatch. She is a soldier at heart, incapable in many ways of the sort of work that Gabriel does now, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. She and Jack work well together, always have, but it doesn’t feel right for it to just be the two of them. She knows Jack feels it. There’s someone missing.

 

 

“Congratulations.”

Jack has his back to her, looking at something in his hands that Ana cannot see. She had knocked on his door and let herself in when he had not answered, because she knew he was here. He says nothing, still, looking strangely small, his shoulders hunched.

“You okay, Jack?” Ana steps into the room. She never usually visits Jack’s quarters, though she knows Gabe is here often. Or used to be here often. Now he is gone, off in another facility. It’s just her and Jack now.

“Fine.” He puts whatever he is holding into the drawer in front of him and closes it, turns to face her. “Why are you here?”

“Can’t a friend come see a friend when they’ve been promoted to Strike Commander and congratulate them?”

He watches her, and for once Ana sees something sharp in his gaze, something like steel. “You thought Gabe would get it.”

Ana shrugs. She can’t lie. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re capable, Jack.”

He lets out his breath in a short, angry hiss. “Tell that to Gabe.”

Of course he has made this about himself. He does not understand. He thinks Gabe and Ana both don’t think he is able to lead Overwatch. But it’s not that. It’s all the time and blood that Gabe spent pouring into this system, only to watch the higher-ups never even _consider_ him for the position. It was always going to be Jack.

“That’s not it at all,” Ana says, but she already knows that Jack can’t hear her. It’s not his fault. Not really. But she still hates him a little bit for it, for his damned stubborness. “You have to understand where Gabe is coming from.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Jack asks. “To get me to see his side? I should have known he wouldn’t come himself. Of course he’d send you.”

That stings. “No one _sent_ me, Jack. I’m your friend. I’m sorry for thinking that meant I could hold you in confidence.”

He’s sorry as soon as she turns to leave. “Ana—”

 

 

She’s been military longer than either of them. Somehow that is still hard for Ana to believe when she is watching the two of them. That perfect duo: the unbeatable team on the front lines, one never anywhere without the other. Leaving her with little, apparently—but it doesn’t really work like that, and she is a sniper, anyway, never on the field where they are. Instead she watches them there, working together, anticipating each other’s moves like they were born to do that, like they have never been apart, can’t even be conceptualized as anything but together.

Of course she is always one step ahead of the both of them. But she has to be. That’s her job. She watches both their backs and gets everyone home safe. They have been doing this together for years. They are a good team, the three of them. Until they aren’t.

 

 

“Overwatch’s golden boy.” Gabriel’s voice is a growl in the back of his throat. He is lying back on Ana’s bed, naked, one of his arms thrown up over his eyes. Ana, in only her underwear, watches him with her head tilted for a moment. He’s so beautiful, she thinks. She is grateful that she is one of the people he lets see that, even if right now his disappointment is bitter, painful to witness. The hardest part is that Jack refuses to understand it. The hardest part is that Ana knows that Gabriel yearns, _desperately,_ for Jack to understand, or at least forgive, or at least—

She doesn’t know. Kiss it better? This brings a smile to her mouth, wry.

Gabe peeks at her from under his forearm. “What are you grinning about?”

Ana gets onto the bed and puts her knees on either side of Gabriel’s naked waist. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says thoughtfully, taking off her bra; “I can think of a few reasons to smile right now.”

He growls again, but playfully, and wraps his arms around her waist and rolls them both over onto the bed. In a week, he is gone—across the country starting Blackwatch’s first deep undercover operation in the southwest United States.

 

 

Splitting up Overwatch like this isn’t right, Ana wants to say, wants to tell anyone who will listen. But what’s the point? The higher-ups will do what they have always done; and she will do what she always has, and follow orders. Keep an eye on her family, when she can, and make sure they all get through this alive.

(Only later will she realize: this is when the rot took ahold of Overwatch from within, began to eat away at its roots and poison it. Eventually it would destroy Overwatch more completely, and more horribly, than any external enemy ever could. And she was there to watch it all.)

 

 

It is a few months later, when Blackwatch first busts the Deadlock Gang, that Ana comes to Jack’s quarters after a mission and finds him sitting staring at nothing, looking pale and exhausted and heartbroken. It is the first time she realizes that his optimism, his wide-eyed wonder, might just be chipping away after all. All things go.

“Jack?”

He looks up at her. Gestures with one hand. “Gabe,” he says, his voice rough, as if he has been—but no, he can’t have. “He’s hurt.”

Ana blinks. It feels like her heart has been cut out of her chest. She wasn’t there. “Bad?”

Jack shrugs. His smile is pained and embarrassed and miserable. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me.”

They stay up all night together, waiting for an update on Gabriel’s condition that does not come until after dawn.

“He’s okay,” Jack says when they finally get the news, “he’s okay, he’s going to be okay,” and he puts his hands on either side of Ana’s face and kisses her.

 

 

“I know about you and Gabe,” Jack says a little while later, when Ana is putting on her boots. She pauses and looks at him. There is a note of hurt in his voice that Ana expected but had not been able to prepare herself for. Is that what this had been, then? A way to get back at her and Gabriel? She hopes not. She remembers how surprisingly desperate Jack had been while kissing her, threading his hands through her hair, and she had been all too happy to find that he liked it when she pushed him back against the bed, liked it when she took charge.

“It’s not like that,” Ana says; because it truly isn’t. She has known about Jack and Gabe for a long time. She never meant to hurt either of them. And she doesn’t think they have meant to hurt her.

Jack is not looking at her. “So what is it like, then?”

Ana sighs. She knows that Jack knows what the truth is—the three of them have known it for a long time. There is no Overwatch without the three of them; and in a way, there is no any of them without the other two. But Jack’s insecurity is strong enough to make him ask a question that he already knows the answer to, and Ana, hard as she may make herself appear sometimes, prefers to comfort those around her when she can, to support and hold them up. That has always been her role here.

She reaches out and touches Jack’s face with the tips of her fingers, and then slowly presses her palm against his cheek. Jack closes his eyes, for just the briefest moment, and then turns his head and kisses her palm.

“What this is,” Ana says softly, “was a long time coming.”

She can feel Jack smile. Is this what he is like with Gabe when they are alone? Ana likes this side of him. She rarely gets to see it anymore, since his promotion. (“Do you think I wanted this?” she remembers him asking after a particularly hard mission, one of his first as Strike Commander. It had stopped her short. It had never occurred to her that maybe he hadn’t.

Wanted this, that is.)

“I will always be here for you, and for him,” Ana says seriously. “And I think you both feel the same way.”

Jack hesitates. Then nods.

“Then let that be enough,” Ana says. Her expression softens with amusement. “Oh, Jack...you always want things to be simpler, to be clearer cut, than they are.”

He laughs now, his eyes a bright flash of brilliant blue, like the sun off the sea at Watchpoint Gibraltar.

“When Gabe gets back....” Ana starts to say, and then she trails off.

Jack nods at her. “When Gabe gets back.” He hesitates for a moment, no longer meeting Ana’s gaze, and she has to tip his face up towards hers with her fingers under his chin. “Listen,” he says, sounding awkward and tired and a little afraid again, too. “—I don’t really do casual relationships.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He looks earnest and very young, and Ana cannot help but be charmed by it. “You and Gabe....”

He leaves it unsaid, but she knows what he wants to say next. _You’re it, for me._

“It’s okay, Jack,” Ana says, surprising herself. All this time, she thought that she _only_ did casual. She never saw this coming. “I know.”

 

 

Gabe returns to Overwatch headquarters a few days later, banged up, bruised, and with a seventeen-year-old delinquent in tow. To Ana’s amusement, Fareeha takes an instant liking to the boy, whose name is Jesse and who gets a grand tour of the base from an excitable eleven-year-old all too happy to drag him around after her by the hand. Jesse is real sweet about it, though, and even seems to take to Fareeha as a sort of older brother, and Ana cannot help but wonder what has happened in this boy’s life to make him so charming, so genuine and open-hearted, and yet leave him stranded in the clutches of the Deadlock Gang, renowned for its cruelty and deadliness.

“You did a good thing, taking that boy in,” Ana tells Gabe, who shrugs at her, seemingly embarrassed.

“We’ll see,” is all he says, and Ana supposes that is true enough.

Jack is standing behind her, shifting his weight on his feet and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. Ana glances between him and Gabe and says, “Let’s have a drink,” before one of them—probably Jack—can make this any more awkward than it already is.

She fetches the whiskey from her quarters, and when she returns to Jack’s room where she left the two of them, she is hardly surprised to find that Jack has Gabe pinned against the wall and is kissing him furiously, fiercely.

“I thought you fucking died,” she can hear him saying, and she feels her face grow hot when she realizes the things that Jack is whispering to Gabe “—I thought you were dead, that I was never going to see you again, God, Gabe, I—” and he makes a helpless noise and just kisses Gabe again, hard.

Ana steps back outside for a moment to clear her head. Goddamn them, she thinks, because she had seen the look on Gabe’s face, that open desperate longing—this is why they tell you to never get in bed with your fellow officers, let alone _two_ of them—

She knocks on the door this time, and when it slides open, Jack and Gabe have put a foot of empty air between them, but they look very much as if they rather that they hadn’t.

Ana raises the bottle and the three shot glasses she is holding. “Shall I stay?” she asks. “Trust me, I won’t be offended if you want me to leave.” Well, not _very._

The gaze Gabe turns on her is as hot and hungry as the one he had regarded Jack with, and for a moment it takes Ana’s breath away. Goddamn Gabriel Reyes. “Why,” he says drily, “would we want that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Ana is relieved but trying to hide it. “You looked like you were getting on just fine on your own.”

Jack flushes a deep red that spreads across his cheekbones and down his neck towards his collar. It even reaches the tips of his ears. He shoots Gabe a dark look when Gabe starts to laugh at him.

“It’s better now that you’re here, Ana,” Jack says, and—well, if she were as pale as Jack, maybe the others would notice her blush, too. Small blessings.

Later that night, when the three of them are stripped down, tired, sweaty, a little proud of having worked out the logistics of sex with one more person than any of them are used to fucking, she rests on her knees between Jack and Gabe. They are both lying back, Gabe already snoring, Jack playing lazily with one of Gabe’s loose, sex-mussed curls. Ana smiles when Jack catches her eye. She thinks: this is love in a way that she has never known it. This is love that she cannot quite explain but that she unconsciously understands, and she wants it—wants it forever, wants it all.

“Go to sleep, Ana,” Jack says softly, and Gabe wakes a little, pats the space in the bed between them.

Ana smiles. “Yessir, Strike Commander Morrison,” she says, and laughs when Jack and Gabe both groan before tugging her down underneath the blankets.

 

 

Ana is always looking to the horizon. It is what she does best: scouting ahead, keeping a weather eye open. She was alone for a long time, and had to learn to fight alone. But not anymore. Here at Overwatch, she has a family. Together, she thinks, they can outlast any storm that comes.

 

 

(They were young, then.)

 

 

 

 


End file.
